Ab initio theory of plasmonic superconductivity within the Eliashberg and density-functional formalisms
Abstract
We extend the two leading methods for the \emph{ab initio} computational descrip tion of phonon-mediated superconductors, namely Eliashberg theory and density fu nctional theory for superconductors (SCDFT), to include plasmonic effects. Furth ermore, we introduce a hybrid formalism in which the Eliashberg approximation fo r the electron-phonon coupling is combined with the SCDFT treatment of the dynam ically screened Coulomb interaction. The methods have been tested on a set of we ll-known conventional superconductors by studying how the plasmon contribution a ffects the phononic mechanism in determining the critical temperature (\tc). Our simulations show that plasmonic SCDFT leads to a good agreement between predict ed and measured \tc's, whereas Eliashberg theory considerably overestimates the plasmon-mediated pairing and, therefore, \tc. The hybrid approach, on the other hand, gives results close to SCDFT and overall in excellent agreement with exper iments.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2007.12886,
title = {Ab initio theory of plasmonic superconductivity within the Eliashberg and density-functional formalisms},
author = {A. Davydov and A. Sanna and C. Pellegrini and J. K. Dewhurst and S. Sharma and E. K. U. Gross},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2007.12886},
year = {2021}
}